Walnut Creek Preserve Speaker Series:Finding “Trails of Tears” and Creating a National Historic Trail in Southwestern North Carolina

Date: March 21, 2026

Time: 10:30 a.m.

Presentation Location: Anne Elizabeth Suratt Nature Center at Walnut Creek Preserve

Speaker: Dr. Brett Riggs, Sequoyah Distinguished Professor of Cherokee Studies at Western Carolina University

For more than forty years researchers have worked to find and document remnants of landscapes associated with the 1838 deportations of Cherokee peoples from their Southeastern homelands. Here in North Carolina, we’ve used detailed survey records to find remains of Cherokee homes, trails and roads, and the federal military infrastructure used to dispossess and displace Cherokee families. These archaeological landscapes are now under protections and interpretive development as part of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, a National Park Service administered network that stretches from North Carolina to Oklahoma. We’ll take a look at these landscapes and the future of the National Historic Trail that remembers a tragic and shameful episode of the American story.

Brett High Riggs (Ph.D., University of Tennessee) is Sequoyah Distinguished Professor of Cherokee Studies at Western Carolina University. Prior to joining Western Carolina University, Riggs was a research archaeologist and assistant professor in the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at the University of North Carolina. He previously served as deputy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and archaeologist for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (ECBI) and serves on the executive committee of the National Trail of Tears Association. Riggs specializes in the archaeology and ethnohistory of the Cherokee and Catawba peoples; his studies of Removal-era Cherokee archaeology and documentary sources guided expansion and interpretation of the NPS Trail of Tears National Historic Trail in North Carolina and Tennessee. His current work focuses on Cherokee traditional landscapes and restoration of form and meanings of traditional geographies.

We acknowledge that though we are the current stewards, the land where we live and work is stolen land. Homeland of the Cherokee, the Yuchi, and the Catawba people, acquired through genocide and forced removal. While Brett Riggs ancestry is not Indigenous, in 2025 the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians named him as an honorary member. Check out the article here.

RSVP is requested below, but not necessary to attend the event! Please join us!

The Walnut Creek Preserve Speaker Series programs are made possible thanks to our partnership with the Preserve.

*Walnut Creek Preserve is private property and guests are only allowed on the property by invitation (a planned event or scheduled group).  Thank you.

Contact Pam Torlina, pam@conservingcarolina.org, with questions or for more information.